Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived

A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?

Update: seemingly not

Update: Oh yeah!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Hanging out your shingle

I think Felix has missed a trick here, in that the purpose of "charity" auctions for dinner-with-a-legislator is one part machismo to ten parts classified advertising.

Look at it this way; when someone pays $218,000 to have lunch with you, it cements your status as the kind of guy who people pay $218,000 to have lunch with. Which means that you're probably the kind of guy who it's worth paying larger sums to. But you can't just put up a sign on your office door saying how much you want in order to get out of bed in the morning - you're a Senator for god's sake, not Christy Turlington. And you can't really just auction off your lunch calendar either, it's vulgar. So two or three times a year, you have this set-piece of a lunch auction so that the world can see just what a massive pair you have, and so people know where to pitch your offers.